In order to have 60 percent of Rwanda’s workforce equipped with digital skills by 2024, joint efforts with the private sector, digital companies, and different other partners, will be crucial, according to the Ministry of ICT and Innovation. Making the case for improving digital literacy skills in schools, Paula Ingabire, the Minister of ICT and Innovation, recently noted that currently, employability is dependent on digital skills. “Government seeks to provide all services in digitized ways and therefore there is a need for a workforce with digital skills on the labour market,” she said. Currently, jobs entail the use of technology and 70 percent of jobs require professional digital skills for productivity according to the ministry’s assessment. However, an assessment conducted within public institutions revealed the digital skills gap and mismatch within the public sector workforce. Only 1 percent were able to attain the above 75 percent standard pass mark according to the assessment. Ingabire said that the government is working with the ICDL Foundation, a global social enterprise dedicated to raising digital competence standards in the workforce, education and society, to bridge the digital skills gap. So far, 13 accredited centres were established to boost digital skills in the workforce. “We are working with Rwanda Development Board to ensure that civil servants get improved digital literacy,” she said, adding that the workforce in the private sector also needs to improve. Rwanda’s target is also in line with the African Union’s target to have 60 percent of the African population with digital skills. According to the African Union, the goal has to be reached as innovations and digitalization are stimulating job creation and contributing to addressing poverty, reducing inequality, facilitating the delivery of goods and services, and contributing to the achievement of Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals. It says that there is a need for urgent action to drive the digital transformation to propel industrialization in Africa and contribute to the digital economy and support the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement. Rwanda revised its broadband policy to focus on five important progressive pillars. They include securing and optimizing broadband infrastructure resources management, inclusive access to high-quality, trusted, and competitive broadband services as well as sustainable and meaningful broadband connectivity driving broadband adoption. Other pillars, she said, include digital skills for all. Commenting on affordability and quality broadband services, Ingabire said that this will include a continued focus on smart device penetration, opening diversified international traffic routes, and implementing number portability services. “More than 50 percent of people in Africa are still digitally excluded and the gap needs to be fixed jointly. Every job you can think of today has an element of digital literacy,” she said. During the GSMA Mobile World Congress (MWC) Africa that started on October 25 in Kigali, a delegation from Kenya led by Senator Karen Nyamu came to learn from Rwanda’s journey to boost digital skills among the population. “We want to learn from Rwanda about how it is implementing digital skills programmes for the population, where the budget comes from among other practices that are delivering. We have to learn from each other and we can learn something to be replicated in Kenya,” she said. Solange Umulisa, the General Manager of ICDL Africa, said that there is a need for political will from African governments to boost digital skills for the African population. So far, ICDL has trained more than 65,000 people including employees in different institutions. “Digital ambassadors have also been trained to be able to train the general population including those who are illiterate on digital literacy. This will boost job creation and change the lives of Africans,” she said. More than 10,000 digital ambassadors were deployed across the country. The digital Ambassadors will help to serve as digital skill trainers to five million Rwandans who have low or no experience in using the internet. The programme will provide more in-depth training to ordinary citizens on how to use e-government services.
